While Job’s friends geared up to convince him about how wicked he must be, he was still deeply in mourning. His prayer is full of despair: “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7:11).

Job calls to God for mercy: “Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good” (7:7). He’d like to get a good night’s rest, but sleep gives him no solace: “When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaints,’ then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body” (7:13-15).

As a basic principle, nobody should be blamed if they say something rude or awkward when their soul is distraught with grief. When you are overcome with such strong emotion, there’s just no telling what anguished words might come out of your mouth. Still, is it acceptable to talk to God with words this raw? As we shall see later in Job, and throughout the psalms, God is not distressed or baffled when we express our strong emotions, even when what we say is not pretty.

But Bildad felt it was his duty to jump up and contradict Job. “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be such a great wind?” (8:2). Bildad offered the stark judgment that Job’s children died because God was punishing them for their sinfulness (8:4). “Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish” (8:13). To comfort Job in his grief, Bildad offers this advice: “God will not reject a blameless person, nor take the hand of evildoers” (8:20) – which is to say, the rejection Job has experienced proves he is not blameless; God has not extended his hand of mercy to Job because Job is an evildoer. In Bildad’s view, then, Job should just shut up and accept that all this disaster is his own godless evil fault.

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Even when our friends are berating us, O Lord, I am grateful that you give us permission to pour out our souls before you: to vocalize the fear and the rage and the doubt, and to have the confidence that you will listen, and hold us close, even in our anguish.